Sleeping Beauty
by Gannet
Summary: A Dark Manor, an enchanted bed, and a sleeping Unspeakable...


**Sleeping Beauty**

The problem with the Dark Arts, Lucius reflected as he sat on the ground, nursing his foot and fighting away tears, was that measuring the exact amount of power one invested in them was tricky at best and highly unreliable the rest of the time.

All in all, he supposed, he shouldn't judge himself too harshly. On a scale from ineffective and Dumbledorian to world-wide, red-eyed, penis-less catastrophe, he scored a fair and square "Exceeds Expectations". After all, the four-poster bed he had charmed did fulfil its nefarious purposes; that all four feet developed a will of their own, and seemed intent on eating his toes alive, could only count as a minor side-effect.

He opened one eye to judge the gravity of the situation.

Dangly bits – all there. Head – one. Arms – two. Legs – that was getting harder – one of them he was holding close, and the other he was sitting on. Ah, two then. Toes – there was the tricky part. He moved his hand from the hurt appendages towards his ankle, and cautiously wiggled one of them after the other. The poor little dears were all there. Pinkie was a little bruised and sore, but it would get over the adventure in time.

Lucius let out the breath he had been holding in. Another morning – another close escape.

Life would go on.

He scrambled to stand up, winced as Pinkie came into contact with the floor, glared at the bed, and made his way to the bathroom, all in one single sentence. Malfoys were like that.

The four-poster, when he thought about it, could stand as a splendid allegory for his whole life. Expensive, sophisticated, embedded with deep streaks of dark magic and light elegance; arrogant, sneaky, mean; and, ultimately, a failure.

He had had this bed made when Narcissa first brought up the topic of divorce. The velvet curtains, satin sheets, the hidden traps and secrets compartments of the headboard bespoke lust and sloth; the width and depth, conjugal intimacy; and the charms and spells woven inside the wood were among the most powerful he knew of. It would help the witch or wizard fall asleep, and lift their inhibitions to colour their dreams with their wildest desires. Should two people sleep there together, it would intertwine their dreams, and make each of them aware of the other's most intimate thoughts. Lucius knew – thought he knew – what Narcissa wanted, and hoped, with an insane, all-consuming passion, that this would do the trick, that this would make her realise how much he desired her, how much he could do for her.

Instead, it had shown him what she really wanted, and that secret, long-repressed desire had short curly hair and dark skin.

At this very instant, Blaise Zabini and his now ex-wife lived in the Black holiday residence in Greece; and he remained alone with the big bed, which had developed wizardophage feet in the interim.

Sleeping on it still would appear foolish to some, but Lucius knew better. It was an everyday reminder of his arrogance. Besides, he couldn't fall asleep anywhere else and the anti-insomnia spells were his last resort.

He opened the bathroom cabinet and stared at the bottles on the shelf. There were no poisons, no, those he kept in his study. But if he mixed Haggis' Harrowing Hangover Husher with Narcissa's forgotten enchanted lipstick solution, the billywig would combine with the shrivelfigs and that ought to put him to sleep for a long, long time. Maybe a hundred years, and then some beautiful young witch, perhaps Narcissa's great-grand-daughter, would dare affront the perils of the Manor's grounds and come to save him with a kiss, and perhaps a blow-job if he was lucky.

He hesitated, but in the end the prospect of going back to the huge, empty, toe-eating bed felt like too much of an effort. Instead he avoided his mirror reflection and headed, still naked, towards the library and its decanter of Firewhisky.

Life would go on; it always did.

Unspeakable Granger was in a foul mood.

Several of Unspeakable Granger's closest co-workers would be ready to swear under oath that a foul-mooded Hermione was nothing but an oxymoron, or at least they would if they weren't morons themselves, and therefore unacquainted with some of the finest imports from Greek the English language purchased some time ago, for a very reasonable fee, there were no taxes back then, which is possibly why Adam Smith wrote what he did when he wrote it, and oh my is that one single sentence, perhaps I should stop here don't you think.

This state of affairs was the result of a very simple misunderstanding. When pondering on her choice of career, Hermione had decided that she wanted to become something more meaningful than a mere Auror - liberating the House-Elves, reshaping the wizarding world, perhaps even learning a few Dark Arts tricks on the way. The Unspeakable path she found appealing at the time; it held ajar a door that promised to open onto a whole new world of mysteries and hidden treasures of arcane knowledge and obscure wisdom.

It had turned out to be filled to the brim with inertia, bureaucracy, and idiots. Mostly with idiots, as they were the ones responsible for the inertia and bureaucracy in the first place.

It was tedious at the best of times, and the morning of an inspection at Malfoy Manor was not the best of times. The morning began with a missing ASS57 blue form, which as it turned out didn't exist any more. The Ministry reproduction services had decided three months prior that the spells needed to dye the forms blue required too complicated a wand movement; the new ASS57-bis forms were thus of a nausea-inducing shade of green. Unfortunately, the wizard or wizards in charge of the replication spells still had not mastered the charm, and there were thus no less than four major mistakes in the title, filing number, reference number and serial number. This counted as a major sin in Unspeakable quarters; Hermione's boss immediately asked for a general section meeting, soon to be followed by a department meeting. Their conclusion was foregone - the reproduction services ought to be made to ingest their wands, preferably in suppository form - but Unspeakables tended to do things calmly. They therefore decided to apply the Code of Administrative Procedure, part 4, section 2, "relations between Ministerial departments as applied to the purveyance of office commodities". This meant addressing a memo to the head of staff of the offending department, another to the general director of Ministerial commodities, and a third to the sub-contractor in charge of printing the template forms.

"It's because of these contractors, the vice-Head of the sub-section declared at the end of the meeting, in the long queue to the coffee machine. Before they came along, everything went a lot more smoothly. In my time, oh, I'm speaking of AFF14 forms here, we were still far away from the ASS57s... in my time, it hardly took more than a week to obtain the regular form! And no mistakes were allowed, no..."

Hermione managed to cut him off before he launched into the retelling of the naughty secretary and the ASH69 form who got stuck on the tip of someone's wand right before a section meeting.

"But that was before the latest replication spells were invented, wasn't it?"

She soon had what she was aiming for. Unspeakables were divided in two warring camps: the proponents of the new generation of replication spells and the staunch opponents. Such was the tension in the various offices that one Head of section had once been reported to have hexed his own secretary when he surprised him using the old set of spells, though rumour said that said replication spell was being applied to the Head of section's wife's knickers at the time of the interruption.

The morning's incident had of course provided fresh ammunition to the side of the old set of spells; Hermione left discreetly soon afterwards, to the sound of multiple wands drawn out to replicate the minutes of the meeting, and possibly to apply a quiet Confundus to a member of the opposite camp.

She headed right to her boss' office, searched his drawer for a BSS56 form, known to the wider world as the derogation form enabling a Ministry Unspeakable to perform a routine check-up on suspicious property grounds in the absence of a proper ASS55, ASS56, ASS57 or ASS57-bis forms. She swiftly imitated his signature, and dutifully marked it with the convenient rubber stamp standing on her boss's desk.

After all, when he wasn't on a coffee break it meant he was drunk; he would hardly notice the substitution, let alone the forging. And the job would be done.

She thoroughly despised searching Malfoy Manor, but that chore she was going to put behind her today whether the world co-operated with her or not.

Wand in hand, armed with the form, she strode into the Auror quarters and requested the presence of two officials to accompany her, as per the official instructions.

Harry and Ron interrupted their game of Exploding Snap when she entered. They weren't first in line to volunteer, but a smile from the famous Harry Potter could do wonders to alter waiting lines.

And before the reader realised what was happening, the Trio, re-united once again, had Apparated on the grounds of Malfoy Manor.

Knock, knock

The early afternoon sun seemed to shine brighter at the Malfoys' doorstep.

They probably used some brilliance charm or other, Hermione reflected, they weren't above cheap tricks to make their not-so-humble abode look even more imposing. But it wasn't Dark Magic, so she supposed there was no harm done.

And the result was not unpleasant to look at, come to think of it.

Knock, knock

Ron shifted; Harry squinted. They both enjoyed her company, but not to the point where they would look forward to visiting this place.

"I have a Ministerial warrant; let's just go in and get this over with."

It wasn't her first inspection of the Manor, and apparently the House-Elves now recognised her. Waiting for them to open the door to a possible liberator didn't make any sense, and they might as well use the absence of the rightful owners to conduct a thorough search.

Inspection wouldn't be quite the same without Narcissa's icy glace and Lucius' sarcastic wit, she thought. But then Narcissa didn't live there any more, did she?

Hermione pushed the heavy door open, unwilling to acknowledge her inner disappointment at Lucius' absence. She hated his barbs and taunts, after all – didn't she?

Ron stayed at the door – Ministry guidelines specified that he should stop anyone or anything from going out of the Manor. That a suspicious place's inhabitants would try to flee with their suspected Dark artefacts made sense; that the Ministry expected them to go away through the main entrance when attempting escape was yet another example of form ASS57-bis' shortcomings. But it was not the place of the Aurors or Unspeakables to criticise Ministry policy, so they carried on with their duties.

"The main hall first – they have a hidden cellar there."

A cellar containing nothing but borderline items. On the two previous inspections, they have warranted a fine of four Sickles and six Knuts that Lucius had paid on the spot, tossing a Galleon at the relevant Unspeakable with what may, or may not, have been a smirk of utter contempt.

This time they rolled up the heavy carpet with a flick of their wands, opened the trap-door, and Harry went down to investigate.

"Four – no, five human skulls… Yes, certainly too old to justify the re-opening of a murder case… Oh that's interesting… a identifying tag saying, let me see… Lumos! Ah, "Cretin Pondscum, Electrical engineer"… how weird… poison, all the usual kinds, yes, all legal…"

"Wand cores, not-so-legal poisons, enchanted coffee machines cunningly disguised as teapots, and a dismembered House-Elf in a jar?" Hermione interrupted.

"Yeah, looks like it..."

"So, same as last year, except for that identifying tag anyway. At least those forms are of some use, I suppose."

Harry climbed out of the cellar and put the rug back; Hermione watched him, deep in thought.

"You know, we should make use of it. This Ministry warrant only allows me to search the public places of the Manor, but…"

"But…"

Harry smiled. He wasn't as thick as some kinds of fanfiction depicted him.

"I'll take the west wing."

Apparently, her best friend had been watching Muggle television recently. Hermione smirked, and headed for the main staircase. Lucius was bound to have all sorts of fascinating artefacts in his bedroom; and a large part of her was very curious to see where the mighty wizard slept.

She tried the first door… and a House-Elf cowed in abject terror.

"No, no Mistress, Flopsy is being very good, Flopsy is not deserving punishment!"

Hermione took her best Unspeakable voice.

"You, Flopsy, shall be freed if you don't show me the Master's bedroom this instant!"

The House-Elf practically ran to the next door and opened it, still bowing.

"Here is the Mistress, I is hoping the Mistress is satisfied…"

"If you don't disappear this instant, I'll free you!"

The Elf was nowhere in sight before the end of the sentence.

If Hermione hadn't been distracted, she might have dwelled upon the fact that the Elf had called her "Mistress"; as it was, she was far too compelled by the sight of the huge four-poster bed to say or do anything.

It was dark mahogany, and sculpted, and imposing, and quite as tacky as could be expected, if not more. And it softly chanted to her, asked her to approach, twisted her emotions and bewitched her senses.

She could recognise the lure of Dark Magic when it hit her like a ton of bricks, she could. But this one was soft, and reassuring, and embraced her already like nothing else she knew. She would only touch… and before she knew she stood in front of it, her hand attracted to the bedpost like a pin to a magnet.

She made contact at last, one first, flittering touch; and nothing happened.

It couldn't be too dark a magic, then.

She twisted her arm around the post, and found herself sitting on the bed.

No, it wasn't dark magic at all, she wouldn't feel that relaxed if it were dark magic… Her eyelids became heavier by the second… her muscles went soft and she fell backwards, onto the soft, fluffy mass of velvet; and her world dissolved into vague, comforting dreams of world domination, piles of dead neighbours and blond, lithe lovers.

Hermione slept soundly. She didn't wake up when Flopsy the House-Elf discreetly entered to check on her; she didn't wake up when Harry let out a piercing scream as the ancient Malfoy family ghoul opened the hidden trap-door that led to the dungeons right under his feet. She didn't wake up when Ron arrived to investigate, and fell into the very same trap; she didn't wake up when the bed creaked down under the weight of a very drunk, very inarticulate Malfoy Senior. And she didn't wake when an arm wrapped around her waist, when a leg slipped between hers, when a stubbly chin buried itself in her shoulder.

The sun set, eventually, a lone nightingale started on its customary vocal exercises, and Flopsy quietly closed the door on the sleeping couple.

Back in Ministry quarters, the Unspeakables agreed to take their quarrel to the pub for a game of darts; after all, replication charms as applied to flying, potentially lethal objects were far, far more challenging than mere forms and thus more suited to the academic nature of those respectable civil servants. By that time of day, respectable amounts of unspecified liquids from hip flasks and hidden bottles had been ingested by most of the staff; no one thought of lodging an official enquiry on the whereabouts of Unspeakable Granger. It was the general assumption that any one of them not well enough to respond to a public invitation to the pub was either too drunk to be helped or too injured to be rescued.

Judging by Hermione's deep sleep, they weren't too far from the truth.

The Unspeakable stirred in her sleep. She had never encountered such a mattress – it went all around her and held her, tight but not too tight, just as she wanted to be held. It was warm and comfortable, and she would have gone right back to a blissful sleep had it not moved.

Or at least part of it moved.

And that part was snugly pressed against her bottom.

Now Hermione was a fully trained witch. She knew how to dispel a Boggart, how to replicate an ASS57-bis, and even how to fill in her tax return application. But one thing she was fully unaware of was how to react to having bedding prod her in the bottom.

In such cases, there was only one thing to be done. Research. Her sleepy mind came into focus; she reached behind herself, to the warm, poky mattress, and gave it a proper rummage.

When the mattress shifted and moaned, her mind suddenly ceased to be sleepy, and all her inner alarm bells started ringing simultaneously.

It showed all signs of being an animate object.

Closer examination proved it to be the rightful owner of the Manor.

Now she most certainly knew what she wanted to do with this peculiar wizard, especially if he happened to be naked and fast asleep.

She inched the bedsheet down and took a nice long look at the offered form.

The face had potential, she knew that much. Remove the stubble and the bad brandy breath… Do _something_ with that hair, _something_ that involved a good conditioner…

The neck and shoulders were a work of art. Muscular, but not bulky, finely traced, but not blunt…

Her gaze wandered to his chest.

One thing had to be said about blonds. Chest hair looked positively gorgeous on them, like little crusts of golden biscuit gleaming in the morning sunlight, all around the twin little pink nipples that stuck out like tiny bits of candy begging to be licked.

The metaphor became too much for her. She leaned forward, stuck her tongue out, and helped herself to the proffered delights. Flick, flick – and whoosh.

She felt something new appearing from nowhere, a sudden awareness of another consciousness. She felt – desire, blurry and undefined.

Realisation dawned upon her. There must be a Legilimency spell on the bed… for she was feeling everything that happened in Lucius' head.

But then, did _he_ sense what she was thinking? Then he must be feeling arousal as well…

His cock twitched at that precise moment, attracting her eye.

He opened his at that precise moment.

They would never cease to argue about that precise point. Twenty years of marital bliss later, it remained their principal bone of contention; and they both found it most convenient to bring it up when they were in the mood for a good argument and short of a good pretext.

In the deepest layer of their awareness, though, they weren't quite sure themselves who had started it. Hermione had had the initiative, this much was clear; but she claimed over and over again that it was his kiss and his kiss alone that had bewitched her senses and made her forget all about getting to work on time.

Lucius would invariably smirk and comment that the bed was charmed to let him know everything his bedpartner felt or thought, and her overwhelming desire to ride him forcefully was so strong that "even a Crumpled-Haired Snobarck would have sensed it".

At that point, Hermione would go in a snit and make some snide remarks about why and how exactly being ridden could provoke an overwhelming desire to demonstrate the finer points of cunilingus?

Lucius had soon learned that Hermione might be a bright witch, but there were some lessons she needed repeated. Over and over again, and preferably when they had an argument.

It was indeed one of Destiny's ways of expressing irony that she should be the one to shut up when his mouth was otherwise occupied.

As things stood, and as far as hard facts go, it was indeed several hours before Hermione even thought of the Unspeakable department; and then it was to decide she was going to be on sick leave for an indefinite period of time.

After all, it took them two days to even get out of bed; and another day to notice the desperate cries for help emanating from the dungeon. Neither Ron nor Harry dared enter the Manor's ground ever again after that peculiar incident. They are both widely known to shoot dark looks at Lucius whenever their paths cross, muttering envious statements about some wizards' apparent ability to distract Hermione for long periods of time.

But even such nasty details aren't enough to mar the perfect endings of a fairy-tale romance. Lucius and Hermione married and had lots of little four-posters they sold to the entire wizarding world, thus laying the cornerstones of what was to become the finest fortune of their time. This didn't make them forget to rest together in their own bed as often as possible, and thus remained happy and content for ever after, as a good night's sleep is the real secret behind all fairy tales.

_The End_

A/N : All my thanks to Littlelizzyann and Shiv for their input.


End file.
